Green Eyes
by heartofstone15
Summary: After she sat, class went on as normal, but Dib couldn't get the girl's bright green eyes out of his mind. They sort of burned there. He couldn't quiet shake it off. I own Lil, but nothing else.
1. Chapter 1

"Finally. With this I'll be able capture Zim and end his reign of terror once and for all!" Dib struck a pose over a jumble of vials and jars.

"I wouldn't count on it," a voice said behind him.

Quickly he spun around and grabbed something. Holding the lamp as a weapon, he faced the hooded character in the corner.

"Who are you and how did get in my house?" he tried to sound threatening.

Green eyes flashed under the hood. "Never mind that. Just don't use that goopy stuff or you'll regret it."

With that, the figure disappeared in a swirl of darkness. Dib rubbed his temples, wondering if he was hallucinating from lack of sleep.

***next day at skool***

"Class, I'm disappointed to inform you that a new failure shall be added to your numbers," Ms. Bitters informed the bored class, gesturing to the girl next to her. "You will be sent to the underground classroom."

The kid behind Dib shrieked as his desk disappeared into the ground.

"Now, speak then sit!" She floated off.

The girl scanned her green eyes around the class. "I'm Lil Stoneheart. Nice to meet you."

After she sat, class went on as normal, but Dib couldn't get the girl's bright green eyes out of his mind. They sort of burned there. He couldn't quiet shake it off.

During recess, Dib pulled out a jar of the purple goop he created the night before. This was his chance. Zim was sitting under a tree listening to something. Dib's creation would finally destroy the alien and rid the Earth of the threat.

"I told you not to use that," a voice said behind him. "Can't you listen?"

Dib turned and saw the new girl. "You! You're the one who snuck into my house last night! What are you?"

The brown-haired girl flashed a grin of pointed teeth and the sky flashed lavender. Dib's head spun and the world melted away like candle wax. Colors splashed about like food dumped onto the floor by a toddler only to be sucked away as the world returned to normal, Dib seeming to be the only one who actually noticed.

"Does that answer your question?" she asked.

"Am I in another one of Zim's hologram chambers?"

"Hardly."

"Then you're some sort of god or guardian angel or something?"

Lil chuckled. "You give me too much merit! A god would be something you would worship. Besides, I like deadly twists of irony too much to be an angel. No, I'm more like a…subtle manipulator. I push you in the direction I want you to go in such a way that you don't notice. You still choose for yourself though."

"Okay, let's pretend I believe you. Why are you here?"

"Normally I don't interfere with these sorts of things, but I felt I should mix things up a little bit. Make it different from what I normally do."

"So basically, you're here because you're bored."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Great," Dib sighed. "I meet a crazy girl that can control the universe and she's here because she's bored."

"Controlling this universe is a bit much but sure I guess you did."

"Whatever. Can you at least explain why I can't dump this on Zim?"

"Well, neither of you should have an advantage over the other. I'm planning something big and I don't want either of you spoiling it!"

Dib was about to ask what she was planning but Lil walked away. He looked at the jar in his hand. An advantage over Zim would be a good thing, but something in the back of his mind urged him to forget the jar and just use water again like last time. He shook his head. This must have been what she meant by "subtle manipulation".

"Hey Zim!"

The next thing the little Irken knew, he was covered in a purple goop. Seconds later, the pain caused him to black out.


	2. Chapter 2

Zim awoke curled up on the couch of his base with absolutely no idea how he got there. He was surprised he wasn't a war prisoner to the Dib-smell, really.

Stiffly, he marched to the trashcan. He needed to test that filth the Dib put on him to see what affects *bonk*!

Zim rubbed his temple and glared at the interfering object. It was the top of the door frame.

"I'm…tall," he muttered.

Meanwhile, Dib was walking home with Gaz as Lil tagged along.

"I still can't believe you helped him," Dib growled.

"Well next time you should listen to me instead of throwing chemicals you created at aliens," remarked Lil. "Speaking of Zim, don't worry about him for a while. He won't bother us."

"What are you talking about?" Dib eyed her suspiciously.

"Just don't worry."

Zim didn't come to skool the next few days. Dib was starting to worry if he was planning anything.

"Go over to his base if you want," Lil whispered to him in class. "You won't find anything."

At the time, he had no idea what she meant, but it made sense now that he was there. There was no base, not even a hole in the ground. Just an empty lot.

"Told you not to worry about him," Lil said, appearing next to him.

"Where'd you come from?" Dib turned, surprised.

She stuck out her tongue. "Wouldn't you like to know!"

"Can you tell me where he went?" Dib sounded hopeful.

"Nope! He'll be back, though, in about….mmm….a year and a half, I think," Lil guessed. "I don't know really, but the Massive is orbiting Conventia right now so defiantly at least a year."

"Isn't the Massive the Irkens' ship thing? What's Conventia?" Dib asked.

"Yes and the convention hall planet."

"That's original," Dib said rolling his eyes.

"Irkens aren't known for their originality but the names defiantly fit."

"Wow, now that Zim's gone, I really don't have much to do," Dib admitted.

"Then you might want to develop a matter shrinker storage thing that can fit into a pocket."

"What? Why?"

"Nothing yet. Well, see you in a year!" Lil walked away waving.

"Hey, wait! What are you talking about?" Dib yelled after her, but she disappeared into thin air.

"That was…weird," Dib said.

*one year later*

"Class, I'm disappointed to inform you that a new failure shall be added to your numbers," Ms. Bitters informed the bored class, gesturing to the girl next to her. "You will be sent to the underground classroom."

The kid behind Dib shrieked as his desk disappeared into the ground.

"Now, speak then sit!" She floated off.

The girl scanned her green eyes around the class. "I'm Lil. Nice to meet you."

By the time she sat behind Dib, he was freaking out. This was the biggest déjà vu moment of his life.

"How come nothing ever differs here?" Dib sighed.

"'Cause I'm lazy," Lil offered. "Anyway, you remembered to make a shrinky storage thingy, right?"

"Lil! No talking in the classroom! Detention!" Ms. Bitters growled.

"Yes, ma'am," she said calmly, earning another growl from the teacher. "When will it be?"

"Today during lunch you will clean out the underground classrooms," Ms. Bitters hissed as the students murmured in fear.

The last student to clean out the underground classrooms never came back.

Lil just shrugged. "Okay then, miss."

The teacher snarled. This one would be difficult to break.

Dib was surprised to see that Lil was alive after skool. She was waiting for him next to Gaz on the steps. Jessica was talking to her so he didn't approach them.

"You seem like you could be cool, you know," Jessica said. "Hanging out with that loser, Dip, will ruin all of that."

"Thanks for helping me," Lil smiled, "but I'd rather hang out with Dib. Since you tried to help me however, I'd advise you not to come to skool tomorrow."

Jessica flipped her hair and walked away. "You're as freaky as Dip!"

Dib came up to the two waiting for him. "What was that all about?"

Lil shrugged. "Nothing really. Come on. We've got to get as much Professor Membrane's Medical Cream and band-aids as we can get."

Dib raised an eyebrow. "Why, exactly?"

"Can't tell you. Just do everything I say. Put as much medical supplies into the shrink things, put them in your pockets, and don't go to skool tomorrow."

"This makes no sense what-so-ever," Dib said.

"Mars being a giant spaceship didn't make sense either but Zim sill battled you with it," Lil retorted. "Gaz, you do this stuff too."

Gaz only grunted in response.

"Fine, fine, we'll do what you say," Dib said.

"Good, can I come over to your house after dinner?" Lil asked.

"Ummm, sure, I guess."

*later that evening*

Lil was passed out on the sofa when Dib finally went to bed. She was wearing several layers of clothing. She told them before she had gone to sleep to shower and get plenty of sleep. Dib was still baffled at her need to have them do all this, but he felt it might be a good idea, though that may have been the "subtle manipulation" thing again. Whatever the case, he shut his alarm off before he went to sleep.

When he woke up the next morning, the sky was filled with Irken ships.


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh my gosh," Dib stared in fearful awe at the sky.

"Yup! Glad you stayed home? The skool is being destroyed right now and the organic sweep will miss your house by barely a mile," Lil appeared next to him.

"Yo…you knew all this would happen? And you didn't try to warn anybody?" Dib shouted.

Lil's green eyes pierced his brown ones. "They wouldn't have believed me. And I did warn someone. You, Gaz, and that Jessica kid. Now I suggest you prepare yourself. The sweep will be ending soon and the soldiers will be picking up slaves."

"We've got to hide! We'll take Tak's ship and we'll get away!" Dib began to panic.

"No, we won't," her voice was like ice. "Tallest Zim knows what Tak's ship looks like and who it currently belongs to now. He'll have the soldiers shoot it down and they'll have to obey."

"Tallest? Isn't that the name of the Irkens' leaders?"

A crash came from downstairs. Irken soldiers marched in and dragged the three off.

In the slave galley, humans were lined up in chains. Many were crying and some had very little on. All had been interrupted from their daily activities. Only one girl was grinning.

"Why are you smiling, Lil?" Dib asked.

"'Cause Zim's going to 'honor us with his presence'. It'll be hilarious!" At this, she giggled.

With that, a door banged open and a very tall Irken, guarded by two soldiers, hovered in. Though the former Invader had grown, there was no mistaking who it was.

"Zim!" hissed Dib.

"That's Almighty Tallest Zim to you, worm-monkey," sneered Zim, having a guard zap Dib.

The humans whimpered in fear of the cruel alien. Lil continued to snicker.

"You dare mock a superior force?" Zim's eyes narrowed at the offending girl.

"Nope!" Lil grinned in delight. "I'm mocking you!"

Zim snarled and grabbed her head in his claws, forcing her into a kneeling position. Lil looked up at him, all amusement gone.

"The human race will never give up," her voice ice.

The human's green eyes frightened Zim and she could tell, though none else could. She began to laugh again.

The guards zapped her so she contented herself with grinning.

"Pitiful human slime! You have been given pity and instead of killing you like the others, you will forever be our slaves," Zim announced. "You will show respect to your superiors. We have ways of dealing with scum such as you."

"Like a room with a nut-eating moose?" mocked Lil.

Zim growled at her but continued. "What should we make of the planet? Another garbage dump? A snack-making planet? Maybe a parking structure planet?"

Dib, by now, could see the effects of Lil's constant ad lib on Zim. "Why would you want to park on an entirely different planet from where you're going?"

"Silence!" shrieked the frustrated Zim. "I can have you tortured in ways you can't possibly fathom, Dib-worm."

Dib shrugged. "Can't be any worse than what the kids at skool did to me when I tried to convince them that you were an alien. Oh, the wedgies I had to endure."

"And the name-calling, the swirlies, the noogies, the pants-ing, the tripping, the laughing…," listed Lil, counting on her fingers.

Zim's eye began to twitch.

"But where are my manners?" Lil said. "Please go on."

"Maybe we should just destroy the planet and be done with it!"

"And waste perfectly good parking space?"

"Guards! Take these two to the Torture Chamber!" Zim screamed.

Dib's and Lil's bonds were severed from the rest of the prisoners and they were forcibly dragged away. Lil was giggling insanely.

"Look at them! They don't know how to laugh or have any fun at all!" Lil chuckled, gesturing to the guards. "You! Can't you smile? No? You have it worse off than us and we're your slaves!"

"Have you gone insane?" Dib asked.

"I've been insane for a while now, actually," Lil admitted. "Great relief, being insane. Everybody generally ignores the things you do because you're insane but really you're more sane then them!"

"That…doesn't make sense," Dib said.

"It doesn't have to." Lil grinned at him.

The guards threw them into a room. The two ground to a halt and they sat up, looking around.

"Where are we?" Dib asked.

"The Torture Chamber of Doomy Doom," answered Lil.

The raven haired boy looked at her in surprise. "How do you know that?"

"It was written above the door."

"Yeah, in Irken!"

"I'm fluent in the written language of Irkish."

"'Irkish'?"

"Irkens are not creative, if you haven't noticed."

"Ooookay… What's so doom filled about this place? No chain, whips, cattle prods, acid, nothing! Just blank walls."

A hole opened up in one of them as he spoke and out tripped a familiar robot.

"Hey, Gir!" Lil said. "How ya doin'?"

"Hi! Master says you want to sing the Doom Song with me! Doom doom do do doom!" sang the blue-eyed robot.

"I'll get us out of this," Lil whispered to Dib. Turning to Gir, she cheered," Your master knows me so well! We should make biscuits with your master! Biscuits are nice."

Gir immediately stopped singing. "I'll get Mastah right now! Pig and Big head boy can help make biscuits too!"

With that, the robot zoomed into the hole from wince he came.

"I don't get it," Dib said. "What were you saving us from? Gir is harmless when he's blue."

"Once Gir sang the Doom Song for six months straight, without stopping," Lil said.

Yelling could be heard outside and a very annoyed Irken carried by an insane robot burst in followed by several guards.

"Hey, Gir!" Lil grinned mischievously. "Let's sing the Doom Song!"


	4. Chapter 4

Zim growled in frustration. Enslaving the humans would have been a perfect success if it were not for that one female.

"She does what?" he shouted at the cowering drone.

"Laughs and sings while laboring, sir," the drone whimpered. "We've tried everything we can to stop her, sir. Even kill her! The equipment is always broken when we try to be rid of her! No one knows why."

"Fool! I will deal with this one myself," snarled Zim.

Meanwhile in the prisoners' pen, Lil was teaching the others to read Irkish. She wrote a phrase in the dust.

"Can anyone tell me what this says?" Lil asked.

Just as the guards came in, everyone answered in unison. "All Irkens are defective scum!"

"Good! Looks like some defects are here right now," Lil smiled at the enraged guards. "What is it this time, Irken defects?"

The guards just growled and forced her up.

"Continue practicing!" She yelled before exciting.

Lil was thrown at the feet of Zim. She got up and dusted off before addressing him.

"You're not so tall," head cocked, she remarked.

"Guards, dismissed," Zim shooed the guards with his hand. "I will teach this one not to mess with a superior force."

Lil looked at him in the eye. "Human spirit can never be broken. I can get used to anything and then make fun of it."

Zim ignored her. "I find it suspicious that whenever we try to be rid of you, the equipment is broken. How do you do it?"

Lil smiled. "I would rather leave that to your imagination. I find that self torture is often times worse than the actual physical kind. It may be that you have a traitor within your ranks, your own robot is more loyal to me, a spy, perhaps, or maybe just pure luck. You'll never know for sure. And that thought will eat away at whatever sanity you've developed."

"Did you know that Scientists are opening up a new field of research?" Zim said slyly. "It studies hybrid species."

"Yes, I did know this. I know more than you could possibly imagine. I know that you were once a scientist yourself, and then you became an Invader, then a Food Service Drone, then an Outcast. Now you are Tallest among the Irkens. Now you have power over your enemy and it destroyed the balance. The balance is righting itself as we speak. Your power will be your downfall."

Zim's eyes narrowed. "Such promises for one so weak."

"Not promises, guarantees. You know not about my strength. But continue on with this new field. I enjoy acquiring new knowledge and this seems to involve me otherwise you would not have brought it up."

"You are correct in your assumption that it involves you. You will provide Irken/human hybrids to study."

Lil scoffed. "Ridiculous. Such a thing is almost impossible. Irkens cannot survive in water and humans are water based. My spit could be used as a weapon against you. Besides, the zygote would be seen as an invading cell since it is not human and be killed by my immune system before it has a chance to develop."

"We have ways of preserving the smeet."

Lil met his eyes once more. "You know, I wasn't sure if I was going to have you die or not, but I've made my mind up now. You're defiantly dying and I think I'll have Skoodge replace you. He's much nicer."

Weeks had passed since Dib last saw his friend. He kept up the lessons and the songs, just as she told him to do. He remembered what she said when he asked why she did all this.

"Have you ever heard of the Greek story called 'Pandora's Box'?" she had asked.

"Ummm…no."

"Well the gods gave a human named Pandora a box and they told her never to open it. She was so curious that she did open it and all the bad things in the world like poverty, greed, and sadness came out. When it was all over, only one thing was left in the box. Hope. The lesson about human nature the story tells us is that humans can get used to anything, live in the worst of circumstances, but they can deal with all of that as long as they have hope. That's why I sing and laugh in slavery. It gives the others hope and that's all they need to be happy."

It had amazed Dib then how serious Lil really was. "Seems kind of silly that you would put up with the Irkens' punishment just to give us hope in a hopeless situation."

She got an odd far off look in her eyes. "Nothing is hopeless."

Dib knew the green eyed girl well enough by now to know that something was coming. He decided then and there that he would help fill the others with hope.

"Hey! Irken scum! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!"

"What's an elderberry?" one guard whispered to the other.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been months since Lil was last seen by any of the humans. The Irken guards had taunted them but to no avail. Only Dib and Gaz remembered her.

At first, Dib believed that the humans were still fools even after being taken over by another race, but then he remembered the day she came back. He was the only one to remember her previous time spent in the classroom. The sudden, widespread amnesia must have been due to Lil's tampering.

Now Dib would wait for the hope that she had hinted at. Never in his life would he have suspected it would come in such an odd way.

"Okay! Time for another act of resistance against Operation Impending Doom Two!" announced Lard Nar to the crew of the Resisty. "That out there is a slave transport ship heading to an Irken tortureplanet. There are rumors that one of the slaves knows a lot of Irken secrets. Their cell is top security because they are always trying to escape making it impossible for anything other than an Irken to get out. We're gonna DIE! Was this Spleenk's idea again?"

"Umm yeah," Spleenk appeared, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry about that."

The leader of the Resisty sighed. "Seal your noise tube and go hide in the broom closet, Spleenk. Ahem, anyway, if we can just make it to the slaves, we may be able to teleport some out of there or transmit the weaknesses to our computer. A small group will go to the slaves while the rest do as much damage to the Irken's ship as possible. To make it fair, we'll draw names out of a container. Anybody got a bowl?"

Eventually, names were drawn and wills were written. Everyone prepared for battle.

"Hey!" the warden pointed to the Resisty's ship when it pulled up next to theirs. "Doesn't whoever owns that ship know that all non-Irken vessels need to have an identification code on them? Call them so we can demand a reason from them."

"Umm, Sir?" a drone said. "That rule is really new and we are close to an upgrading station planet. They may be going to planet Fixitup right now."

The warden turned to the Irken who spoke, eyes narrowing. "Are contradicting me, soldier?"

The drone gulped. "N…n…no, sir! Just a…a…offering a reason, sir!"

"Call them anyway. I feel like blowing something up."

"Can't believe mine was the first name to be picked," grumbled Lard Nar, selecting between several weapons.

"They're trying to contact us, sir!" Shloonktapooxis came in, tongue sticking out of his mouth. "What do we do?"

"Just put them through to the loading dial! You know how boring those things are. They'll never know we were there."

A few minutes later on the slave vessel…

"So…boring…Must…find…something…entertaining," the warden struggled to keep awake despite the elevator music and the grayscale film of a goldfish. He tripped over a very large book on his way to the vending machines. "Everything Wrong about the Battle of Oppsmybad by the Nitpickers' association, published by Dullanddry Incorporated."

He was on chapter two when the secret Resisty force sneaked by.

"Okay, slave quarters, slave quarters," muttered Lard Nar, looking at a handy map of the ship. "Down that hall and to the left. Good! Almost there."

"Hey! You're not supposed to be here," an Irken guard who had just come from around the corner said. "Finally! Something besides the loading dial! Hey, guys! We're being attacked!"

"Attacked? Really? Thank the Tallest!"

"Someone's attacking us? Where?"

"Something to do! This is the best moment of my life!"

"Let's get out of here!" shrieked Lard Nar, running toward the slave compound.

"No, wait, come back! Don't leave me to the fish! The horrible fish!"

Dib and the other slaves were being forced to clean the bathrooms again when the Resisty barged in and were captured by the Irkens who came in right after them. Within seconds, Lard Nar was chained next to Dib, cleaning toilets.

"Well that's something you don't see every day," Dib noted. "What are you, anyway?"

"There is no day or night in space but I see your point," Lard Nar said. "I'm a Vortian and you are?"

"I'm a human from planet Earth," the boy answered. "Wow, I read about your planet. How come you aren't on the Irken's top military research planet? Did you escape or something?"

"It's a long story," replied Lard Nar. "I've never heard of Earth before."

"Yeah, evidently my planet was in unexplored space until Zim landed on it," he growled out Zim's name.

"Wait, if your planet was undiscovered, how do you know about planet Vort?"

"I yanked information from Zim's computer all the time and translated it using another Irken's ship."

Lard Nar stood frozen. Dib shrugged it off, not knowing much about other species habits, and began humming. Lard Nar scrambled to get his wrist communicator working.

"Won't work," Dib said bluntly. "We already tried that."

The Vortian put down his arm in defeat. "Isn't this just great! I've confirmed that all the rumors about another species that fought the Irken Tallest are true and I can't even tell anyone."

"You could escape," offered Dib.

Lard Nar scoffed. "Impossible. This is an Irken slave ship. Nothing escapes from these things."

The human rolled his eyes. "There are all kinds of flaws in the security. These guys are so used to everyone being too afraid of them to try anything that they slack off on things. At least when I was trying to prove to everyone that Zim was an alien, he made it difficult to get information out of his computer."

"Escape? How? Look at all the gaurds!"

The boy shushed him. "Keep your voice down. I'll show you."

He cleared his throat and called out. "Mary, Mary, quiet contrary, how does your garden grow?"

Some time passed and several voices answered.

"The ants go marching three by three. Hurah! Hurah!"

"Cukaburah sits in the old gum tree!"

The boy grinned at the Vortian next to him. "That's how."

"What's how? All I heard was nonsense!"

"Exactly. I'll explain later."

Lard Nar shook his head. Whatever he found may know a lot about Irkens, but he was defiantly crazy.

**If you can guess the secret message, I'll give you a virtual hug.**


End file.
